Tired
by tiddlywinks32
Summary: Dean is just so tired, all the time. He knows it's wrong, but honestly, how else is he supposed to get the voices to shut up? Rated T for self-harm, alcoholism, drugs, and language. Not Wincest. Work in progress. Please read and review.
1. Prologue

**Tired**

**A/N: Hey y'all! This is my first fic ever, so reviews and constructive criticism are appreciated. I can't personally bake you cookies, but I can send you the idea of them! I have a couple chapters of this written, so I may or may not continue this... Let me know what you think!**

Dean had never been so tired before. Yeah, he had been on his fair share of crazy hunts with Dad, especially when Sammy had left. But that had been before Cas, the Apocalypse, and the friggin Leviathans. Dean had been bone-tired before, but never like this.

Even with all of his self-loathing episodes before and after Hell, he had never felt tired _all the time_. He had never been this empty all the time. He had never been this... depressed, starved, _lacking_ all the time. Sure, he and Sam had seen their fair share of "down" hunters, taking on suicidal cases solo because there was no other way out for them. But Dean had never thought it would be him.

He knew Sam had started to notice- dammit, he was supposed to stay strong for his baby brother. Even though Gigantor had enough of his own issues to worry about (didn't they all?), Dean could still feel his gaze every time Sam thought he wasn't looking. But honestly, Dean just didn't care. He didn't care much about anything anymore, except for the bottom of a whiskey bottle night after night and the thrill of pain every time a blade touched his skin- no, every time _his_ blade touched his skin.

He knew it was bad. Stupid, even. He knew he should stop. But what was one more cut on his arms, his legs, his goddamn puppy belly, when he got beat up regularly on the job as it was? What was one more bruise, one more scab, one more scar, when he had a thousand others littering his body? Why should he feel bad about it when just being able to feel pain through this endless haze of exhaustion was an achievement? He covered up the extra cuts with layers upon layers of clothes- never enough to make him feel warm again, but enough to hide them from Sam. "It's just cold, Sammy."

_Oh God, Sam can't know. He's just gotten back from Hell, still seeing Lucifer, we've just lost Bobby- can't put him through any more. He can't know._

Dean knew it was dangerous the first time he went looking for something more. He had been off of sex for months, constantly declining waitresses, bar maids, even the hot girls they rescued. His knife had been good, trusty, by his side, but he was having to cut deeper and deeper, more and more, see increasing amounts of red decorating his skin before he could feel _alive_ again. Alcohol had been a decent fix, working fine back when he was still with Dad, hunting with Sam, before Hell and Castiel, but pickling his liver every night had started losing its appeal. So when Dean was hunting a pack of vampires who also happened to sell a lovely assortment of mood- and mind-altering drugs, instead of beheading _all_ of them on sight, he listened. These sons-of-bitches sure knew what they were doing, because Dean almost bought some (actually got them to lead him to their storehouse) before beheading the lot. He told himself it couldn't hurt. _You're already an alcoholic, Sam's been addicted to demon blood, and God knows what Dad's fix to this fucking life was. One hit can't hurt, and I can handle my own goddamn problems._

TBC


	2. Chapter 1

++ FOUR MONTHS LATER ++

"Where am I? Dammit Sammy what'd they do to me this time? Am I in a goddamn HOSPITAL?"

Sam raised his head slowly from the edge of Dean's bed, eyes tired and accusing.

"Dean, _they_ didn't do anything. _You_ overdosed on heroin, or so the doctors told me. There's also cuts all over your body, deeper than they should be. Doctors said lacerations on your wrist facing the wrong direction pointed to four failed suicide attempts. You've been here for three days, after I found you back at our motel passed out on the floor with your lips turning blue, bleeding from your wrists. What I can't figure out is why?"

Dean turned his head to the side, away from Sam's sad puppy face. "It's nothing. I'll be fine."

"Dean, enough of this 'I'm strong enough to handle everything' crap. You're not fine. So spill."

All right. Fine. You wanna know? I'll tell you. I'm just so tired all the time. I don't know what to do any more. I do know it's not this, but come on- when has anybody gotten out? We've both tried and failed miserably."

"Dean..."

"No Sam, hear me out." Dean started picking at the bandages on his wrist. "Maybe it's time I listened to your 'let out your feelings' bull crap and told you a couple things.

"You know, I see them all. All the people we failed, got killed, even the ones we "saved". Even if they didn't die, their lives are still irrevocably changed because of us, and that's something we can't take back. We can _never_ take it back. Little Krissy, with her dad and the pair of monsters that almost killed you? She's got a kill under her belt and a one-way ticket to an early death. Just like all the other people we've 'helped'."

"Dean, you know that we do help people, and they do go on to live healthy, normal lives."

Dean continued talking, almost like Sam hadn't spoken at all. "They keep me up at night. I try to put my head down for five hours, three, two, just enough to keep going the next day. I see them every time I close my eyes. Hell, I see them when my eyes are open too. Their voices are constantly whispering in my head, telling me things I already know.

Sam sat up straighter in the hard chair the hospital had given him. "But this still doesn't explain the four suicide attempts, Dean. The drugs. The cutting. You and I have seen enough addicts in our lives, and you've been looking like one on their way out."

"I just... I don't know, Sam. I don't know what to tell you. I just want to go to sleep, all right? I'm so damn tired."

Truth was, Dean did know. He knew that every cut he made took away some of _their_ pain, but he also knew that logically it would never be enough. Didn't stop him from trying, though. So he kept cutting and scratching, deeper and deeper, until the dizziness in his head outweighed the voices and accusing faces.

Constantly being lightheaded from blood loss was not an option for him, however. Dean turned to other things. He kept up the drinking, but it was taking more and more booze each night to make him forget everything. The drugs were nasty the first time he tried, but when he finally got it right, everything was bright and alive for the first time in months. The vampires had plenty with them when Dean took off their heads, and he had seen no reason to leave it behind for junkies to take.

Why should he have left it behind? For the first month, it had sat in the trunk of the Impala while he picked at scabs and stared down the bottom of a bottle. When he was only able to get an hour of sleep each night because the voices kept yelling at him, he began turning the idea over in his head. _Just one hit, one hit and you'll be good. You'll finally have energy again, Sam won't know, the voices will finally take a friggin break._

That's what he told himself every time after, too. _Just one more, and then you'll be done. _

Once he had tried stopping, but when Sam noticed him going through withdrawal, he admitted that he might have a problem. After that, he got used to the extra surge of complete and utter loathing that coated his insides and the extra glares from those he could not save whenever he shot up.

Good things never last for Winchesters, and Dean's luck with keeping the voices away soon faded. He had to take increasing amounts of drugs to get the same rush, and cut deeper each time he snuck off to the bathroom to get the voices and accusing faces to leave him alone. He knew that sometime Sam would catch him, and they would end up having a huge confrontation, but Dean was living day-to-day now and anything more than the normal hunting drama got dropped in favor of keeping it all together. There was no way Dean was making it out of this alive, so if he had to go, he was going to do it on his own terms.

All too soon, it got to be too much for Dean. The voices wouldn't stop yelling, screaming, shouting at him. _You're stupid. You're a failure. God, you're pathetic. You couldn't save us, you can't save yourself, and you're going to leave Sam wondering. Better to just end your feeble attempt at life, instead of continuing on like this. You're a pitiful excuse for a human being._


End file.
